Letters  and 
Addresses  on 
Woman  Suffrage 


By  Catholic  Ecclesiastics 

COMPILED  BY 

Margaret  Hayden  Rorke 


Gertrude  H.  Leonard 
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Copyright,  1914,  by 
Margaret  Hayden  Rorke 


FOREWORD 

Prompted  by  the  desire  to  correct  the  prevalent  im- 
pression that  the  Catholic  Church  is  officially  opposed 
to  Woman  Suffrage,  the  compiler  offers  the  following 
letters  and  addresses.  As  a  Catholic  mother,  she  sub- 
mits these  expressions  of  Catholic  Ecclesiastics  (with 
their  permission)  in  the  hope  that  they  may  serve,  not 
only  to  remove  misapprehension  and  prejudice,  but 
to  inspire  every  woman  with  the  desire  to  claim  a 
share  in  the  direction  of  legislation  which  affects  her 
own  status  and  the  welfare  of  her  children. 

M.  H.  R. 


Cardinal's  Residence 
408  N.  Charles  Street 

Baltimore,  March  27,  1914. 

My  dear  Mrs.  Rorke  : 

His  Eminence,  the  Cardinal,*  directs  me  to  write 
and  state  that  in  answer  to  your  letter  regarding  the 
Church's  attitude  concerning  Woman  Suffrage,  the 
Church  has  taken  no  official  attitude  on  the  subject, 
but  leaves  the  matter  to  the  good  judgment  of  her 
children,  as  to  what  they  think  best. 

The  statement  that  our  Church  is  opposed  to  the 
enfranchisement  of  women  is  incorrect. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Eugene  J.  Connelly, 

Assistant  Secretary. 

Mrs.  William  H.  Rorke, 
57  Strong  Place, 

Brooklyn,  New  York. 


*His  Eminence  James  Cardinal  Gibbons. 

2 


The  following  letter  from  the  Most  Rev.  Patrick  W. 
Riordan,  Archbishop  of  San  Francisco,  was  read  in  all 
the  churches  of  the  Archdiocese,  Sunday,  August 
ii,  1912: 

Rev.  and  Dear  Father: 

While  our  Catholic  people,  with  the  high  ideals 
which  the  Church  holds  before  them,  ought  to  be 
models  of  right  living  and  exemplars  of  the  highest 
Christian  virtue,  they  should  also  possess  a  high  de- 
gree of  civic  virtue. 

The  enjoyment  of  the  privileges  and  blessings  of 
citizenship  impose  correlative  duties  and  obligations 
which  no  citizen  should  ignore.  Among  these  duties 
the  chiefest  is  voting.  Especially  is  this  true  in  a  coun- 
try with  our  form  of  government,  in  which  a  vote  has 
but  an  arithmetical  value.  Majorities  rule,  both  in 
making  the  laws  and  in  choosing  our  officials ;  hence, 
it  is  clear  that  the  stability  of  our  government  depends 
ultimately  upon  the  civic  and  moral  virtues  of  its  in- 
dividual citizens. 

Our  Catholic  people,  therefore,  should  be  not  only 
law-abiding  citizens,  but  should  take  part  in  the  mak- 
ing of  the  laws  under  which  they  live,  and  in  the 
election  of  officers  worthy  to  administer  the  laws  when 
made.   This  is  true  for  women  as  well  as  for  men. 

In  California,  woman  suffrage  is  now  an  accom- 
plished fact.  Women  ought  not,  therefore,  to  permit 
their  traditional  love  for  the  virtues  of  the  home,  their 
innate  dignity  and  becoming  reserve,  to  prevent  them 
from  discharging  the  chiefest  of  civic  obligations.  I 
wish>  therefore,  you  would  take  a  seasonable  oppor- 
tunity of  advising  our  new  electors  to  register,  that 
they  may  be  at  all  times  prepared  to  give  their  services 
in  making  California  a  model  State,  and  of  handing 
down  to  the  children  that  come  after  them,  a  tradition 
of  righteousness  and  of  unselfish  patriotism. 
Yours  sincerely  in  Christ, 

Patrick  W.  Riordan, 

Archbishop  of  San  Francisco. 


3 


The  following  letter  was  issued  by  Rt.  Rev.  Paul 
P.  Rhode,  Auxiliary  Bishop  of  Chicago,  111.,  on  hear- 
ing that  many  foreign  women  of  the  Archdiocese  hesi- 
tated to  register  without  the  sanction  of  the  Church. 
This  letter  was  read  in  all  the  churches  under  his  juris- 
diction on  Sunday,  March  15,  1914. 

"Catholic  women  of  Illinois,  in  complete  harmony 
with  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  should  all  accept  the 
new  prerogative  of  their  citizenship  with  which  they 
have  been  invested  by  the  extension  of  suffrage  to 
them  by  law. 

"Conditions  demand  that  they  be  not  reluctant  to 
exercise  their  right  of  voting,  but  on  the  contrary,  that 
they  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  political  life  of  the 
country.  Let  them  do  this  provided  they  do  not  for- 
get their  home,  their  duties  toward  their  families,  and 
provided  that  their  interest  in  politics  be  at  all  times 
dignified,  modest,  and  in  agreement  with  the  dictates 
of  their  conscience. 

"Let  them  shun  blind  partisanship,  beware  of  dema- 
gogues, and  hold  fast  to  the  ideals  of  Christian  mother- 
hood, Christian  maidenhood,  and  earnest  citizenship. 

"Let  the  Catholic  women  remember  the  debt  of 
gratitude  to  society  and  to  the  State  for  the  benefits 
which  they  and  all  enjoy  under  its  protection.  When 
entering  the  polling  place  or  voting  booth  no  other  mo- 
tives should  actuate  them  than  the  welfare  of  the  State, 
the  good  of  society,  and  above  all  the  protection  of  the 
family  life  of  the  nation  and  of  sound  principles." 


4 


Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart, 
457  West  51st  Street 

New  York,  May  26,  1914. 

Dear  Mrs.  Rorke: 

I  hope  you  will  pardon  my  delay  in  answering  your 
courteous  note  of  the  26th  ult. 

You  asked  me  if  the  copy  of  a  clipping  you  enclosed 
was  authentic.  I  answer,  yes,  substantially.  There  is, 
however,  one  correction  to  be  made. 

It  was  not  the  other  day  but  about  two  years  ago 
that  I  expressed  myself,  as  quoted  in  the  clipping,  to 
a  representative  of  the  Globe  of  this  city. 

Yours  sincerely, 

Joseph  F.  Mooney. 

"The  Church  has  never  taken  any  stand  on  this 
matter  of  extending  the  franchise  to  women,"  said 
Msgr.  Mooney,  Vicar-General  of  New  York,  the  other 
day.  "There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  any  woman 
in  the  Church  should  not  advocate  votes  for  women,  so 
long  as  she  does  it  in  an  orderly  lawful  way.  It  does 
the  Church  a  grave  injustice  to  circulate  the  report 
that  Catholic  members  in  the  different  State  legisla- 
tures are  being  influenced  to  vote  against  Suffrage 
because  the  Church  is  opposed  to  it." 

"Whatever  has  been  said  on  this  subject  by  priests 
and  members  of  the  hierarchy  has  been  said  by  them 
as  individuals." 


5 


Paulist  Fathers 
660  California  Street 

San  Francisco,  Cal., 
April  16,  1914. 
My  dear  Mrs.  Rorke:  Yours  of  the  10th  arrived 
yesterday,  and  you  see  I  am  answering  it  without  need- 
less delay. 

It  is  quite  true  that  I  am,  and  have  been  all  along, 
in  favor  of  woman  suffrage ;  that  is  to  say,  as  far  as 
the  right  to  vote  is  concerned ;  which  is,  of  course,  the 
strict  and  proper  meaning  of  the  word.  As  to  being 
voted  for,  and  holding  public  office,  the  principal  ob- 
jection to  that,  with  regard  to  married  women,  espe- 
cially with  families,  seems  to  be  their  necessary  occupa- 
tion with  other  duties.  The  same  objection,  of  course, 
also  applies  to  the  clergy,  to  priests  especially,  and  in 
fact  to  doctors  and  business  men  generally.  But  the 
man's  business  can  usually  be  given  up  or  delegated  to 
some  one  else,  whereas  that  can  hardly  be  said  of 
mothers  of  families. 

When  it  comes,  however,  to  voting  for  others  for 
public  office,  or  for  measures  submitted  to  popular  vote, 
I  regard  the  argument  so  commonly  advanced  about 
woman's  "sphere"  being  the  home  as  simply  and  ob- 
viously absurd.  One  might  as  well  say  that  the  doc- 
tor's sphere  is  his  office  or  the  hospital,  or  his  patient's 
houses ;  or  the  priest's  sphere  the  pulpit,  the  altar,  or 
the  confessional.  The  point  is  that  no  time  need  to  be 
taken  from  one's  regular  duties  in  order  to  vote.  I 
have  never  found  that  more  than  an  hour,  at  the  very 
outside,  needed  to  be  taken  from  my  usual  employ- 
ments, in  the  whole  course  of  the  year,  in  order  to 
register  and  vote.  It  seems  to  be  absurdly  assumed 
that  women,  if  they  vote,  must  plunge  into  a  whirl- 
wind of  political  meetings,  parades,  and  the  like.  There 
is  no  reason  why  they  should,  any  more  than  there  is 

6 


why  quiet  and  business-like  men  should  do  so.  Men 
just  inform  themselves  sufficiently  to  vote  intelligently, 
and  vote ;  that  is  all  that  most  sensible  men  do.  Women 
may  have  to  make  some  fuss  in  order  to  get  the  right 
to  vote ;  but  when  they  have  got  it,  as  they  have  in  this 
State,  they  make  less  fuss  than  men  do.  That  is  our 
experience  here.  They  learn  what  is  needed  in  order 
to  vote  correctly  and  avoid  mistakes  in  marking  their 
ballots  better  than  men  do. 

As  to  what  is  really  your  main  question,  whether  the 
Church  is  opposed  to  woman  suffrage,  the  answer  is 
simply  that  it  is  not.  Probably  the  majority  of  out 
prelates  and  priests  have  been  so ;  but  just  as  a  matter 
of  private  opinion,  due  mainly  to  a  conservative  habit 
of  mind,  which  Catholics,  especially  ecclesiastics, 
naturally  get  into.  But  no  official  action  has  been 
taken,  and  there  is  no  probability  whatever  that  any 
ever  will  be. 

Of  course,  by  her  Divine  constitution,  the  Church 
excludes  women  from  any  share  in  her  government. 
But  she  excludes  the  male  laity  just  as  entirely.  But 
with  regard  to  the  government  of  the  State,  she  has 
nothing  to  say.  During  the  greater  part  of  her  his- 
tory, the  government  of  the  State  has  been  monarchical ; 
but  she  never  made  any  objection  to  queens  regnant, 
any  more  than  to  kings.  She  has  never  opposed  de- 
mocracy as  a  form  of  government  in  the  State.  If, 
therefore,  the  people  are  to  take  the  place  of  a  monarch, 
why  should  she  oppose  the  female  people  any  more 
than  the  male?  It  would  not  appear  that  she  would 
object,  if  the  people  chose,  to  restrict  the  suffrage  in 
a  democracy  to  women  exclusively,  and  give  the  men 
no  vote  at  all.  It  would,  probably,  be  good  for  the 
interests  of  religion  to  have  such  an  arrangement.  This 
may  seem  to  be  merely  a  joke,  but  it  is  not  meant  that 
way.  How  good  it  would  be  for  France  and  Catholic 
countries  generally,  just  now ! 


7 


And  it  is  quite  plain  that  with  regard  to  moral  ques- 
tions, the  interests  of  morality  would  be  advanced  by- 
woman  suffrage,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  have  used  it ; 
that  is  of  women  voting,  not  of  their  being  voted  for, 
for  public  offices.  They  seem,  in  some  cases,  to  have 
made  a  success  at  the  latter ;  but,  for  married  women, 
at  any  rate,  common  sense  would  probably,  as  a  rule, 
deem  it  unadvisable,  just  as  it  would  be  to  elect  a  priest 
as  mayor  of  a  city.  He  has  his  own  business  to  attend 
to,  and  the  two  cannot  be  combined.  The  temporal 
power  of  the  Pope  has  its  special  reasons,  the  main 
one  being  to  secure  his  independence;  but  he  never 
attended  to  the  details  of  government. 

Yours  very  truly, 

Geo.  M.  Searle,  C.S.P. 


WHY  I  BELIEVE  IN  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 

BY 

Rev.  J.  Elliot  Ross,  Ph.D.,  C.S.P. 
Chicago,  111. 
Author  of  "Consumers  and  Wage-Earners" 

When  I  was  living  in  an  Italian  seminary  in  Rome, 
I  once  startled  the  priests  at  the  table  out  of  their 
masculine  self-complacency  when  I  told  them  I  thought 
that  women  were  higher  and  nobler  than  men  as  a 
general  thing  and  would  make  better  priests.  "How 
about  St.  Paul's  legislation  ?"  asked  one.  "Didn't  he 
say  that  women  shouldn't  be  heard  in  church?"  "Cer- 
tainly he  did,"  I  admitted,  "but  that  was  only  local 
and  temporary.  It  was  probably  dictated  by  the  fact 
that  St.  Paul  was  such  a  confirmed  bachelor." 

"Then  Christ  made  a  mistake,"  objected  another,  "in 
selecting  men  to  be  His  ministers."  "Not  at  all,"  I 
answered,  "because  He  chose  the  weak  things  of  this 
world  to  confound  the  strong." 

"But  if  women  are  stronger  and  nobler  than  men," 

8 


said  a  third,  "Christ  should  have  become  a  woman." 
"No  more,"  I  said,  "than  He  should  have  become  an 
angel,  because  angels  are  nobler  than  men.  Christ 
wished  to  empty  Himself  entirely,  to  humble  Himself 
as  much  as  possible." 

With  a  shrug  of  the  shoulders,  they  decided  it  was 
the  American  way  of  looking  at  the  question  and  in- 
comprehensible to  a  Latin. 

I  suppose  the  chivalrous  devotion  of  American  men 
to  women  is  incomprehensible  to  a  Latin,  and  I  am 
afraid  that  you  will  never  have  the  chance  to  show 
whether  or  not  you  would  make  better  priests.  You 
will  never  be  able  to  actualize  Gibson's  picture  called 
"In  Days  to  Come  Our  Churches  May  Be  Fuller," 
representing  a  crowded  congregation  of  men  listening 
to  a  beautiful  woman  discoursing  from  the  pulpit.  We 
Americans  can't  give  our  women  the  priesthood,  but 
we  can  give  and  have  given  you  the  ballot.  You  have 
the  chance  to  show  there  that  you  are  better  and  nobler 
and  more  sweetly  reasonable  than  men.  You  have  the 
chance  to  show  that  you  can  vote  honestly,  fearlessly, 
intelligently. 

Perhaps  I  am  expected  to  give  you  the  Catholic  view 
of  woman  suffrage.  If  that  be  all  that  you  wish  to 
know  of,  you  may  as  well  stop  reading  now.  That  can 
be  stated  in  less  than  a  dozen  words.  For  the  Catholic 
view  of  this  question,  to  put  it  in  an  Irish  way,  is  that 
there  is  no  Catholic  view.  You  might  just  as  well 
speak  of  the  Catholic  view  of  the  tariff,  or  the  weather, 
or  the  corn  crop.  There  is  no  Catholic  view  of  woman 
suffrage,  because  it  is  not  a  Catholic  question. 

As  was  recently  said  editorially  in  the  official  organ 
of  the  Archdiocese  of  Chicago,  the  Church  "has  never 
taken  any  stand  either  for  or  against  the  proposal. 
True,  individual  members  of  the  Church,  and  even 
members  of  the  clergy  and  hierarchy,  have  expressed 
opinions  pro  and  con  in  regard  to  it,  but  these  are  but 


9 


individual  opinions,  and  do  not  represent  the  attitude 
of  the  Church  as  a  whole.  There  is  no  obligation 
placed  upon  Catholics  by  the  Church  binding  them  to 
oppose  any  more  than  to  support  the  suffrage  move- 
ment, simply  because  there  is  no  intrinsic  question  of 
faith  or  morals  involved  in  it."  (The  New  World, 
Chicago,  HI.,  Oct.  18,  1913.) 

Therefore,  when  I  speak  to  you  on  woman  suffrage, 
I  am  not  giving  you  the  Catholic  view.  I  am  giving 
you  my  own  view.  I  am  speaking  to  you  as  a  citizen, 
not  as  a  priest. 

Personally,  I  am  very  much  in  favor  of  woman 
suffrage,  and  that  for  three  reasons. 

The  first  is,  that  women  need  the  suffrage  as  much 
for  their  own  highest  spiritual  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment, as  for  a  protection  against  man-made  laws. 

The  second  reason  is,  that  men  need  women  as  help- 
mates in  political  as  well  as  in  domestic  life. 

And  my  third  reason  for  suffrage  is,  that  there  is 
no  reason  against  it. 

WOMEN  NEED  THE  SUFFRAGE 

In  the  first  place,  women  need  the  suffrage.  They 
need  it  for  their  own  spiritual  and  intellectual  growth. 
You  have  heard  it  said,  doubtless,  that  the  suffrage  is 
going  to  hurt  women  spiritually.  These  objectors  take 
the  lofty  ground  of  looking  out  for  woman's  best  in- 
terests and  profess  to  believe  that  she  will  be  degraded 
by  the  foulness  men  have  created  in  political  life.  But 
such  persons  underrate  woman's  influence  for  good. 
If  we  could  conceive  the  home  without  a  mother, 
family  life  would  be  worse  than  political  life.  And  to 
extend  woman's  influence  from  the  hearth  to  the  ma- 
chinery of  government,  is  not  going  to  injure  her,  but 
purify  and  ennoble  our  politics. 

I  believe  that  women,  in  order  to  fulfill  their  home 
duties,  need  to  get  out  of  the  home  in  the  wider  life 


10 


of  the  nation.  To  center  all  our  interests  in  one  family 
is  selfishness,  no  matter  how  big  the  family,  and  all 
selfishness  is  narrowing.  As  has  been  said,  the  history 
of  civilization  is  the  history  of  the  enlarging  concept 
of  neighbor.  At  first  confined  to  immediate  blood  re- 
lations, then  to  a  village  or  tribe,  then  a  nation,  we 
are  gradually  growing  into  a  realization  of  that  sub- 
lime intuition  of  St.  Paul,  when  there  will  be  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  bond  nor  free,  white  nor  black,  but 
one  brotherhood  of  man  united  through  the  fatherhood 
of  God. 

Also,  woman  needs  the  vote  to  protect  herself 
against  man-made  laws,  whether  or  not  she  have  prop- 
erty. 

It  is  a  trite  saying,  but  its  triteness  does  not  rob  it 
of  its  truth,  that  the  unmarried  woman  who  is  paying 
taxes  is  being  taxed  without  representation.  And  the 
fact  that  this  has  been  going  on  so  long  does  not  make 
it  less  tyranny  than  what  our  fathers  fought  against. 
Women  who  are  going  to  pay  the  tax  should  have  some 
voice  in  fixing  the  rate ;  women  who  are  going  to  pay 
the  assessments  should  have  some  voice  in  deciding 
upon  the  improvements. 

And  the  married  woman's  rights  in  her  own  prop- 
erty and  in  that  of  her  husband  should  be  just  the 
same  as  those  of  her  husband  in  his  own  and  in  hers. 
There  is  absolutely  no  reason  for  any  distinction  favor- 
ing the  man,  except  that  men  have  made  the  laws. 
Yet  in  some  States,  the  property  relations  between 
husband  and  wife  are  a  virtual  realization  of  the  old 
joke:  What's  yours  is  mine,  and  what's  mine  is  my 
own.  The  wife  has  no  control  over  her  husband's 
property,  real  or  personal.  He  may  dispose  of  it 
without  her  consent  and  in  any  way.  Whereas,  the 
management  of  her  estate  is  entirely  in  his  hands. 
Her  personal  property  becomes  his  property ;  her  real 
estate  is  managed  by  him.   He  can  eject  tenants  (even 


ii 


his  wife's  own  mother),  collect  rents  and  use  the  in- 
come in  any  way  he  pleases.  He  may  give  his  wife 
a  part  but  he  is  not  bound  to.* 

Formerly  in  Maryland,!  the  surviving  husband  of 
an  intestate  woman  took  life  estate  in  all  the  wife's 
realty.  This  arrangement  might  sometimes  work  ex- 
treme hardship  to  the  children.  For  instance,  a 
wealthy  widow  with  one  child,  a  daughter,  remarries 
and  dies  without  a  will.  The  child,  if  her  mother  had 
only  real  property,  becomes  dependent  upon  the  gen- 
erosity of  a  step-father.  She  owns  her  mother's  es- 
tate, but  can  get  none  of  the  income  until  her  step- 
father's death. 

In  many  States  a  man  has  a  legal  right  to  his  own 
wages  and  they  cannot  be  seized  for  any  debt  con- 
tracted by  his  wife  without  his  consent.  Yet  his  wife's 
wages  can  be  seized  for  his  debts,  though  she  may  have 
had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  making  them  and 
may  have  been  seriously  injured  by  such  expenditure. 
A  mistress  was  once  about  to  pay  her  cook  when  she 
was  handed  a  perfectly  legal  document  requiring  her 
instead  to  pay  the  money  to  a  certain  saloonkeeper, 
because  the  cook's  husband  had  run  a  bill  there.  So 
this  woman,  besides  taking  the  abuse  and  beating  from 
her  husband  in  his  cups,  actually  had  to  pay  by  her 
hard  work  for  the  liquor  that  made  a  beast  out  of  him.% 

*Sou.  W.  Rep.,  63,  p.  867,  Rev.  Stats.  1895,  Art.  2967, 
Texas  Sup.  Ct.,  held  during  marriage  husband  has  control 
of  wife's  separate  estate.  Tenn.  Reps.;  86-333 :  Husband  may 
eject  tenant  of  lease  made  by  wife  without  his  consent.  As 
head  of  family  he  controls  wife's  #  lands.  Id.  101,  374* 
Husband  entitled  on  marriage  to  wife's  personalty  in  pos- 
session and  at  her  death  to  choses  in  action.  Husband  re- 
covered land  wife  had  willed  to  half  brothers  and  sisters, 
she  having  no  issue. 

tCf.  Md.  Code  1904,  Art.  45,  Sec.  7. 

^This  happened  in  Illinois.  Law  has  since  been  changed 
to  protect  their  wages  from  creditors  of  husband.  Cf.  111. 
Rev.  Stats.  1912,  P-  1284,  Sec.  7. 


12 


The  property  relations  of  man  and  wife  should  be 
recognized  as  an  equal  partnership,  though  even  then, 
probably  most  women  would  not  be  getting  what  they 
really  contribute.  Anything  made  and  saved  after 
marriage  should  be  shared  half  and  half,  and  the  wife 
should  have  the  power  of  disposing  of  her  portion  by 
will.  Comparatively  few  women  are  supported  by  their 
husbands.  The  economic  contribution  of  the  woman 
is  usually  fairly  equal  to  that  of  the  man,  as  is  found 
out  when  the  mother  dies.  His  wages  are  seldom  suffi- 
cient then  to  buy  in  the  market  the  same  services  that 
his  wife  was  giving  gratis.  Her  contribution  in  cook- 
ing, sewing,  washing,  caring  for  the  children,  in  forc- 
ing the  income  to  go  as  far  as  possible,  in  making  all 
that  is  meant  by  the  word  "home"  is,  in  the  vast  ma- 
jority of  cases,  worth  more  than  the  man's  contribution 
of  daily  wages. 

Again,  in  the  question  of  rights  over  the  children, 
there  is  a  discrimination  against  the  woman.  In  some 
States  she  may  not  recover  damages  for  the  death  of 
a  son,  unless  the  child  be  actually  with  her  at  the  time. 
This  condition  is  not  imposed  upon  the  man.  There- 
fore, a  mother  who  had  raised  a  boy  deserted  by  his 
father  and  her  husband,  could  not  recover  damages  for 
his  death ;  or  if  she  could  they  would  go  into  a  fund  to 
be  kept  for  her  absconding  husband.  When  he  re- 
turned, he  could  take  the  money  legally  and  again 
desert  her.  Of  course,  this  is  not  the  law  in  all  States, 
but  it  should  not  be  the  law  even  in  one.* 

MEN  NEED  WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 

I  want  equal  suffrage  for  what  it  will  do  for  men. 
We  have  halved  society,  as  has  been  said,  and  the 
surgical  operation  has  left  the  worse  and  weaker  half 
to  deal  with  political  problems.    Men  have  not  been 

*Cf.  N.  Y.  Supplement,  Vol.  27,  p.  403;  Bliss,  N.  Y.  An. 
Code,  Vol.  3,  p.  3821,  Sec.  7. 

13 


able  to  handle  the  increasing  complexities  of  civiliza- 
tion. There  may  be  no  ultimate  solution  of  these 
problems.  I  don't  see  any.  But,  then,  I  am  a  mere 
man.  Perhaps  when  women  get  the  political  power 
that  men  have,  they  will  be  able  to  show  us  some 
remedy. 

But  though  there  may  be  no  ultimate  and  universal 
remedy,  there  are  certain  crudely  evident  things  that 
ought  to  be  done,  and  which  will  be  done  when  women 
get  a  real  chance. 

For  instance,  all  monopoly  of  certain  resources  and 
products  ought  to  cease.  Ten  per  cent,  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States  ought  not  to  own  90  per  cent, 
of  the  wealth.  Half  a  million  people,  in  a  city  like 
Chicago,  ought  not  to  be  forced  to  live  in  unsanitary 
tenements  because  a  few  others  have  monopolized  the 
land ;  30,000  men  should  not  be  killed  and  twenty  times 
as  many  injured  in  mine  and  factory  every  year;  our 
children  should  not  be  taken  at  four,  six,  eight  years 
old  to  drudge  unceasingly  to  make  our  finery;  our 
meats  should  not  be  tainted,  our  bread  mouldy,  our 
fruits  spoiled.    All  these  things  are  unnecessary. 

Yet  men  have  faced  these  conditions  helplessly. 
They  have  made  the  laws  under  which  such  crimes 
have  been  perpetrated ;  under  which  our  railroads  and 
our  express  companies,  our  gas  and  electric  light  com- 
panies, have  consistently  robbed  us  in  order  to  pay 
dividends  on  watered  stock ;  under  which  a  small  ring 
of  money  kings  have  throttled  the  nation  and  dictated 
their  own  terms. 

What  women  have  done  without  the  suffrage  and 
where  they  have  had  the  suffrage  is  a  presage  of  what 
they  will  do  when  they  get  it  universally.  Woman 
has  not  only  put  her  own  house  in  order,  she  has  put 
her  town  in  order.  Women  are  the  only  people  who 
know  what  cleanliness  means.  Go  into  the  house  of 
a  religious  order  of  men — there  are  cobwebs  on  the 


14 


ceiling  and  dust  on  the  floor,  and  you  could  write  your 
name  on  the  tables,  because  there  are  no  women  there 
to  keep  it  clean.  But  a  religious  community  of  women 
will  keep  their  house  spotless,  because  there  are  no 
men  around  to  dirty  it  up. 

From  coast  to  coast,  women  have  put  towns  in 
order.  They  have  gotten  public  parks  and  play- 
grounds, they  have  made  war  on  billboards,  ash  heaps 
and  garbage  cans;  they  have  gotten  drinking  foun- 
tains for  man  and  beast;  they  have  shortened  hours 
for  women  and  eliminated  children  from  industry; 
they  have  put  seats  behind  counters  and  started  shop- 
early  campaigns;  the  Red  Cross  Society  and  the  war 
on  tuberculosis  are  the  result  of  women's  efforts ;  she 
has  established  day  nurseries  and  public  feeding  sta- 
tions; she  has  obtained  medical  inspection  in  the 
schools. 

And  where  woman  has  the  vote  she  is  concentrating 
her  attention  upon  such  laws  as  those  for  a  minimum 
wage,  anti-child  labor,  mothers,  pensions,  equal  co- 
guardianship  of  children,  vocational  training  in  public 
schools  and  other  State  institutions. 

Certainly  man  needs  woman's  help  in  governing  this 
nation  as  in  governing  the  home.  As  has  been  said, 
man  has  by  long  absorption  in  commerce  been  trained 
to  think  in  terms  of  property;  whereas  woman  by 
immemorial  custom  has  been  trained  to  think  in  terms 
of  humanity — the  home,  husband,  children.  We  can- 
not afford  to  have  our  laws  made  by  any  narrow,  one- 
sided class  as  men  have  been  and  will  continue  to  be. 
It  is  not  only  just  and  proper  to  give  woman  the  vote — 
it  is  good  policy.  For  we  need  the  influx  of  their 
humanity  in  dealing  with  our  problems. 

NO  SOLID  ARGUMENT  AGAINST  SUFFRAGE 

If  you  wish  a  third  argument,  it  is  that  there  is  no 
argument  against  equal  suffrage.   When  you  carry  the 


15 


war  into  the  enemy's  country  and  demand  an  argument 
against  votes  for  women  that  does  not  equally  apply 
to  votes  for  men,  you  get  only  inconclusive  vaporings. 

It  is  sometimes  said,  for  instance,  that  the  exercise 
of  the  franchise  will  take  a  woman  out  of  the  home 
to  the  neglect  of  domestic  duties.  An  advocate  of 
votes  for  women  was  once  addressing  a  Baltimore 
gathering  and  received  this  very  objection  when  she 
offered  to  answer  questions.  Some  mere  man  from  the 
audience  demanded  with  a  delicious  air  of  finality: 
"What's  going  to  become  of  the  babies  when  the 
women  go  out  to  vote?"  "What  becomes  of  them  now 
when  we  go  to  market?"  was  the  ready  and  sufficient 
reply. 

In  fact,  one  might  just  as  reasonably  urge  that 
women  should  have  no  religion,  because  church-going 
may  interfere  with  their  home  obligations.  Church- 
going  does  interfere  with  the  domestic  duties  of  some 
women.  They  spend  entirely  too  much  time  in  church 
and  in  learning  the  gossip  of  the  parish. 

And  why  is  it  not  a  mother's  place  to  prepare  her 
boy  for  full-rounded  citizenship?  Why  should  a  lad 
take  his  religion  from  his  mother,  but  his  politics  from 
his  father?  Why  should  not  her  influence  extend  into 
the  political  sphere,  too?  Why  should  she  not  train 
him  in  political  as  in  other  righteousness?  But  she 
cannot  do  this  effectively  unless  she  have  a  personal 
interest  through  the  suffrage.  And  so  her  domestic 
duties,  instead  of  militating  against  the  suffrage  argue 
for  it.  For  she  cannot  fulfill  her  duties  toward  her 
children  in  the  largest,  completest  sense  without  taking 
some  part  in  political  affairs. 

It  is  said,  too,  that  for  a  wife  to  be  able  to  vote  will 
mean  a  constant  source  of  quarreling  between  her  and 
her  husband.  You  cannot  expect  them  to  agree  in 
politics,  and,  therefore,  they  will  soon  be  breaking  up 
the  furniture.    But  we  assume  that  we  have  reached 

16 


that  degree  of  civilization  where  two  people,  even  two 
who  love  one  another  and  are  united  by  one  of  God's 
sacraments,  can  differ  without  fighting  about  it.  It  is 
possible  peaceably  to  agree  or  disagree.  And  if  people 
can't  do  that  on  the  question  of  politics,  it  will  do  little 
good  to  eliminate  that  particular  question.  They  will 
find  plenty  of  other  things  to  quarrel  over. 

Others  will  tell  you  that  women  are  governed  too 
much  by  sentiment  to  use  the  suffrage  intelligently. 
They  are  not  so  rational  as  men,  they  guess  instead  of 
reason,  they  jump  at  conclusions.  But  what's  the 
harm  of  jumping  at  conclusions  provided  you  arrive  at 
the  right  one?  Why  go  round  Robin  Hood's  barn 
when  you  can  go  through  ?  And  men  guess  themselves. 
The  difference  between  men  and  women  in  the  matter 
is  the  difference  between  the  North  and  the  South. 
Northerners  guess  and  Southerners  reckon — but 
Southerners  reckon  better  than  Northerners  guess. 
Men  don't  reason  things  out  ordinarily.  And  fortu- 
nately so.  For  if  our  government  were  in  the  hands 
of  educated  men  who  reason  to  their  conclusions,  it 
would  be  the  most  egregious  failure  in  the  world.  We 
who  believe  in  democracy  know  that  its  success  is 
based  upon  that  fact — that  the  people,  the  great  un- 
washed, uneducated  people  are,  after  all,  better  judges 
than  a  set  of  pedagogues. 

What  do  the  men  who  talk  about  sentiment  and 
guess  work  know  about  the  effects  of  a  tariff?  The 
great  majority  of  them  didn't  have  enough  informa- 
tion on  the  subject  to  vote  intelligently,  according  to 
their  own  standard.  These  self-constituted  arbiters  of 
what  is  practicable  and  impracticable,  advisable  and 
inadvisable,  have  always  damned  every  progressive 
movement  since  the  world  began.  They  told  us  loco- 
motives were  useless  because  a  horse  beat  the  first  one ; 
they  told  us  steam  transatlantic  navigation  was  impos- 
sible, because  they  had   figured  out,  on  rational 


17 


grounds,  that  a  ship  couldn't  carry  all  the  coal  she 
would  need ;  they  told  Columbus  he  was  a  fool  to  try 
for  a  new  route — and  so  on  indefinitely. 

"Be  sure  you're  right,  then  go  ahead,"  would  be  a 
good  motto  if  you  could  ever  be  sure.  But  if  you  wait 
to  be  sure,  you'll  never  get  anywhere.  You'll  stay  in 
the  same  place  till  doomsday.  You  will  be  like  the 
scholastic  donkey  starving  between  two  haystacks,  be- 
cause the  reasons  were  equally  good  for  eating  either. 
A  little  recklessness,  a  little  guessing,  a  little  faith  in 
Providence  is  necessary  for  progress.  And  because 
women  have  more  faith  than  men  they  can  use  the 
suffrage  better.  For  in  some  ways  political  faith  is 
akin  to  divine  faith — it  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped 
for,  it  is  the  evidence  of  things  that  appear  not. 
(Hebr.  6:  I.) 

Women  have  more  hope,  more  optimism,  more  ideal- 
ism, and  therefore,  they  have  greater  ability  to  realize 
the  substance  of  the  things  they  hope  for,  greater  power 
of  creating  the  evidence  of  those  things  that  appear 
not  as  yet  to  the  grosser,  more  material  vision  of  men. 

And  so,  where  women  have  not  the  suffrage,  I  would 
give  it  to  them  for  these  three  reasons:  (i)  That  they 
need  it  for  their  own  spiritual  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment as  well  as  for  a  protection  against  man-made 
laws;  (2)  that  men  need  that  women  should  vote; 
(3)  and  the  third  reason  is,  that  there  is  no  reason 
against  giving  them  the  suffrage. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  POSITION  OF 
WOMAN  TO-DAY 

BY 

Rev.  Joseph  H.  McMahon,  Ph.D. 
Rector  of  the  Church  of  "Our  Lady  of  Lourdes," 
New  York  City 
I  pointed  out  in  a  previous  lecture  that  the  funda- 
mental philosophical  reason  of  the  woman  movement 

18 


was  briefly  this:  the  social  revolution,  that  has  so 
completely  changed  her  condition,  has  not  been  so  swift 
in  changing  the  framework  of  law  that  holds  society 
together  to-day.  As  a  consequence,  woman  is  in  a 
false  social  position  because  that  position  is  not  recog- 
nized by  the  spirit  of  laws  and  constitutions  enacted 
for  other  times,  other  conditions.  Hence  the  need  of 
legal  changes,  and  enactments  that  shall  be  more  in 
harmony  with  the  de  facto  position  of  woman.  I 
believe  the  need  of  some  such  proceeding  is  vaguely 
admitted  by  all.  When  it  comes  to  the  practical  means 
of  effecting  these  changes  then  there  is  evidently  the 
widest  divergence  of  opinion. 

Let  me  make  it  clear,  first  of  all,  that  the  Catholic 
Church  does  not  and  cannot  approve  of  any  methods  to 
better  woman's  position  that  are  criminal  or  immoral. 
Time  brings  sweet  revenges  ;  and  one  of  the  sweetest  is 
to  have  the  representative  of  that  Church  that  has  for 
so  long  been  vilified,  calumniated  and  abused  as  up- 
holding and  practising  the  utterly  immoral  doctrine 
that  "the  end  justifies  the  means"  being  now  compelled 
to  protest  most  energetically  against  those  who  for- 
merly her  most  eager  or  convinced  accusers,  are  now 
actually  condoning  or  proclaiming  this  infamous  teach- 
ing. 

It  is  amazing  to  find  women  of  culture,  high  social 
standing,  unblemished  personal  morality,  irreproachable 
private  lives,  unblushingly  sympathizing  with  the  cruel, 
criminal,  barbaric  demonstrations  of  militant  suffra- 
gettes in  England.  Even  members  of  the  Catholic 
Woman's  Suffrage  League  in  that  country  have  for- 
gotten the  teachings  of  their  Church  and  the  warnings 
of  their  ecclesiastical  superiors  in  their  blind  but  mis- 
guided zeal  to  secure  the  success  of  a  means  of  better- 
ment with  which  as  such  the  Catholic  Church  has  not 
and  can  have  no  quarrel. 

Such  indefensible  methods  gravely  prejudice  the 

19 


question  at  issue ;  and  as  in  all  such  matters,  the  result- 
ant confusion  creates  in  the  mind  of  the  thoughtless 
people  who  are  unable,  or  do  not  take  the  trouble,  to 
distinguish  the  issues,  the  idea  that  the  Church  and 
Catholics  as  such  are  opposed  to  woman  suffrage. 
Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  real  truth. 

Individual  Catholics  indeed,  in  large  numbers,  and 
individual  ecclesiastics,  some  of  high  standing,  and  of 
great  authority,  are  opposed  to  granting  the  suffrage 
to  women.  But  no  authoritative  or  official  pronounce- 
ment has  been  made  against  it  nor  is  it  easy  to  see  how 
any  such  could  legitimately  or  reasonably  be  made. 
And  for  every  Oliver  denouncing  woman's  suffrage, 
an  ecclesiastical  Roland  can  be  cited. 

Perhaps  the  strongest  utterance  as  yet  made  in  this 
country  was  that  made  last  autumn  by  the  Archbishop 
of  San  Francisco,  when  in  a  pastoral  letter,  fulfilling 
his  episcopal  office  of  teaching  the  faithful,  he  strongly 
urged  the  women  of  his  flock  to  exercise  their  preroga- 
tive of  voting.  The  testimony  of  Archbishop  Red- 
wood, of  Wellington,  New  Zealand,  given  in  a  news- 
paper interview  in  this  country,  while  it  has  not  the 
same  sacrosanct  character,  is,  however,  important  and 
valuable  to  set  against  the  harsher  jeremiads  of  other 
ecclesiastics  who  apparently  have  not  taken  the  trouble 
to  study  the  question  very  profoundly,  and  are  swayed 
more  by  their  prophetic  apprehensions  of  evil  than  by 
the  calm  logic  of  analogy,  history  and  facts. 

I  take  pleasure  in  quoting  the  interview  in  full: 
"Women,"  said  the  Archbishop  to  a  reporter  of  the 
St.  Louis  Times,  "have  had  the  vote  in  New  Zealand 
for  many  years,  and  it  has  been  proven  that  they  use 
it  wisely  and  judiciously,  and  for  the  greatest  common 
good.  I  am  heartily  in  sympathy  with  the  movement 
in  this  country,  and  believe  that  the  tide  of  equal 
suffrage  cannot  be  stemmed.  Not  very  long  ago  we 
had  a  woman  as  mayor  of  Wellington,  the  capital  of 


20 


New  Zealand,  and  her  administration,  while  not  a 
phenomenal  success,  was  a  meritorious  one  in  many- 
respects.  The  greatest  service  of  the  women  voters 
to  New  Zealand  lies  in  the  school,  hospital  and  chari- 
table departments,  and  in  bringing  about  municipal 
beautification  and  improvement.  The  women  of  New 
Zealand  have  maintained  the  high  standard  of  purity 
and  womanhood,  and,  if  anything,  they  are  better  wives 
and  home-conservers." 

Indeed,  I  am  informed  that  in  that  wonderful  anti- 
podean land  even  the  Catholic  nuns  vote,  a  fact,  if  it 
be  a  fact,  that  should  rightfully  give  many  of  us  an 
apoplectic  seizure. 

But  seriously,  why  should  women  not  have  the  right 
to  vote?  Let  us  examine  that  question  apart  from  all 
personal  prejudice,  predilection,  apprehension,  aside 
even  from  the  consideration  that,  in  the  opinion  of 
many  if  not  all  those  engaged  in  the  feminist  move- 
ment, it  is  the  sole  effective  means  of  securing  that 
betterment  for  which  they  are  struggling. 

The  right  to  vote  can  be  denied  to  women  either  on 
the  ground  that  suffrage  is  an  inherent  right  of  the 
men  of  any  commonwealth,  or  that  women  are  essen- 
tially unfitted  for  its  exercise,  or,  from  the  Catholic 
point  of  view,  that  to  grant  it  would  be  to  break  with  a 
sacred  tradition,  or  that  its  exercise  would  tend  to  de- 
grade them. 

It  is,  of  course,  an  absurdity  to  think  that  men  have 
any  inherent  or  essential  right  to  the  suffrage.  That 
right  is  determined  by  the  body  politic,  and  is  ulti- 
mately a  matter  of  positive  and  mutable  law.  As  far 
as  it  may  be  connected  with  the  fundamental  law  of 
any  society  the  suffrage  should  belong  to  the  directing 
elements  of  such  society.  Under  present  conditions 
women  must  surely  be  counted  among  these  elements. 
Once  you  proclaim  the  principle  of  universal  suffrage 
and  be  it  understood  such  principle  is  proclaimed  in 

21 


V 


the  idea  of  manhood  suffrage,  you  really  ignore  the 
right  of  all  the  directing  elements  and  substitute  the 
senseless  tyranny  of  a  majority  unless  you  provide  for 
some  sort  of  proportional  representation. 

The  Supreme  Court  of  New  Jersey  quite  recently 
denied  that  there  was  any  such  thing  as  an  inherent 
right  to  the  suffrage,  or  any  intrinsic  necessity  that  it 
belonged  to  one  class  of  citizens  rather  than  to  an- 
other. 

Restrict  the  suffrage  if  you  will ;  enact  any  qualifica- 
tion you  may  desire,  but  do  not  be  guilty  of  the  ab- 
surdity and  injustice  of  establishing  sex  as  a  barrier, 
when  under  actual  conditions  woman  is  so  important 
a  factor  in  every  relation  of  modern  life.  Woman  with- 
out the  suffrage,  and  therefore  without  responsibility, 
has  always  exerted  political  influence.  Her  ignorance 
in  affairs  of  State  was  so  much  the  more  dangerous 
since,  incurring  no  responsibility,  running  no  risk,  she 
could  allow  herself  to  be  guided  by  whim  or  passion. 
Place  responsibility  on  her  by  giving  the  right  to  vote, 
and  at  least  you  are  in  no  worse  position,  but  in  all 
probability  in  a  better  one. 

Nor  can  it  be  truthfully  said  that  woman  is  un- 
fitted for  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage.  Who  will 
claim,  for  instance,  that  a  woman  of  education  and 
affairs  cannot  better  discharge  that  function  than  her 
ignorant  furnace  man,  or  the  drunken  corner  loafer,  or 
the  low-browed  gunman,  or  the  political  heeler. 

What  sound  argument  can  be  advanced  against  the 
proposal  to  give  woman  the  right  of  suffrage  ?  Surely 
the  appeal  to  tradition,  especially  on  the  part  of  Cath- 
olics, is  pointless  and  contradictory.  For,  first  of  all, 
we  must  remember  that  the  political  system  of  suf- 
rage  is  altogether  of  recent  date,  commencing  practi- 
cally with  the  establishment  of  these  United  States. 

The  protest  in  the  name  of  traditional  custom  is 
about  as  sensible  as  a  protest  against  automobiles  or 


22 


electricity.  As  a  witty  French  woman  put  it:  "You 
might  as  well  say  that  since  the  Romans  did  not  make 
use  of  dynamos  we  have  no  right  to  use  incandescent 
lamps.  Parliamentary  rule  and  universal  suffrage  are 
also  novelties  of  the  century,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
to  prove  by  legal  tests  or  historic  documents  that  the 
exercise  of  our  right  to  vote  was  long  ago  an  exclu- 
sively masculine  appanage." 

On  the  contrary,  and  it  is  well  for  Catholics,  par- 
ticularly, to  take  note  of  this,  as  far  as  there  is  a  tra- 
dition, it  is  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage. 

In  former  times  all  governmental  offices  were  filled 
by  the  sovereign  or  by  right  of  inheritance  or  rank,  and 
voting  was  a  rarity.  But  wherever  the  right  to  vote 
did  exist,  in  the  great  mediaeval  corporations,  for  ex- 
ample, in  cantonal,  communal  or  municipal  affairs,  and 
especially  in  female  as  well  as  male  religious  communi- 
ties, women  as  such  were  not  excluded  from  voting. 

There  is  on  record,  for  instance,  the  details  of  an 
election  in  Montpellier  in  1334  and  20  per  cent,  of  the 
voters  were  women.  In  almost  every  country  women 
had  the  right  to  vote  in  communal  affairs.  In  the 
republics  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  officials  of  the  Com- 
munes were  designated  by  lot  irrespective  of  sex,  a 
usage  that  obtained  in  Tuscany  until  1849  an^  in  Lom- 
bardy  until  181 6. 

In  the  Franche-Comte  women  who  were  landed  pro- 
prietors assisted  in  the  legislative  councils,  and  the 
convocation  writ  of  the  famous  States-General  of  1780 
is  a  proof  of  the  right  of  women  to  vote. 

According  to  feudal  law,  a  woman  possessed  of  a 
fief  acquired  all  seignorial  rights.  She  could  adminis- 
ter and  receive  oaths,  nominate  officials,  assist  at  de- 
liberative and  legislative  assemblies.  In  many  coun- 
tries a  married  woman  could  administer  her  own  prop- 
erty independently  of  her  husband. 

Laboulaye  cites  marriage  contracts  of  that  tenor 


23 


from  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  that  not  only 
endow  women  with  property  and  administrative  rights, 
but  also  with  proprietary  rights.  Such  rights  included 
that  of  voting.  The  early  municipal  customs  of 
France,  Spain  and  Flanders  gave  women  an  independ- 
ence greater  than  they  have  ever  possessed  until  now. 
Laboulaye,  who  surely  cannot  be  accused  of  partiality 
to  woman  suffrage,  admits  that  "women  during  all 
the  Middle  Ages  possessed  entire  civic  capacity,  and 
preserved  it  even  when  married,  no  matter  what  their 
rank.  That  doctrine  confirmed  by  the  Code  of  St. 
Louis  is  general.  A  woman  possessed  of  a  fief  exer- 
cised the  right  to  hold  courts  both  of  first  instance  and 
of  appeal,  to  coin  money,  to  levy  troops,  to  serve  in 
person  her  suzerain,  if  she  so  willed." 

Instances  in  proof  will  occur  to  the  memory.  The 
Countess  of  Flanders  sat  with  her  peers  in  the  trial 
of  the  Count  of  Clermont  by  St.  Louis,  King  of 
France.  The  Countess  Matilda  nobly  served  her 
suzerain,  the  great  St.  Gregory,  patron  of  this  associa- 
tion. The  pages  of  mediaeval  French  and  English  his- 
tory are  full  of  similar  instances.  King  Louis  le  Jeune, 
in  a  letter  to  the  Vicomtesse  of  Marbonne,  recognized 
the  right  of  women  to  administer  justice.  Out  of 
forty-eight  great  fiefs  of  France  only  one  excluded 
women  from  the  Council  of  State ;  that  was  the  He  de 
France,  a  dependence  of  the  king  and,  consequently, 
under  the  Salic  law.  But  be  it  remembered  that  France 
itself  was  alone  in  imposing  the  Salic  law,  and  France, 
even  while  refusing  to  women  succession  to  the  throne, 
placed  in  their  hands  the  regency  with  powers  as  great 
as  royalty  itself  could  possess. 

Those  who  appeal  to  tradition,  then,  to  justify  the 
refusal  to  women  of  the  suffrage,  are  thereby  con- 
victed of  ignorance.  For  Catholics  such  an  appeal  is 
an  indication  of  abyssmal  ignorance.  The  times  of 
which  we  have  been  speaking  were  Catholic.   In  Cath- 


24 


olic  countries,  the  Code  of  St.  Louis,  which  sanctioned 
these  rights  to  women,  continued  in  force  until  it  was 
ruthlessly  superseded  by  the  Code  of  the  Revolution. 
Catholics,  therefore,  who  invoke  tradition  as  opposed 
to  the  principle  of  woman  suffrage  are  embracing  the 
unholy  tradition  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  are 
innocently  adopting  the  motto  of  Milton's  Satan, 
"Evil  be  thou  my  Good.,,  Moreover,  Catholics,  above 
all,  should  not  forget  that  to-day,  even  as  in  the  Middle 
Ages,  in  religious  communities,  women  elect  their  su- 
periors. The  history  of  abbesses  in  their  Church 
should  stop  their  protest  against  woman's  right  to  vote. 
Furthermore,  it  may  be  a  surprise,  but  it  is,  neverthe- 
less, a  fact  that  even  to-day  in  the  great  diocese  of 
Turin,  Italy,  and  in  many  of  the  Catholic  cantons  of 
Switzerland,  Catholic  women  as  well  as  their  men 
folk  vcte  for  the  parish  priest,  and  the  Bishop  is 
obliged  to  confirm  the  candidate  so  elected  by  the  votes 
of  the  women  as  well  as  those  of  men,  unless  he  can 
find  some  canonical  ground  for  his  refusal,  and  then 
the  election  must  be  held  again  by  identically  the  same 
electors. 

If  the  Catholic  Church  allows  women  to  vote  for  an 
office  of  such  tremendous  responsibility  as  that  involv- 
ing the  care  of  souls,  who  will  presume  to  say  that  she 
is  of  necessity  opposed  to  women  voting  for  merely 
political  officials. 

But,  it  will  be  urged,  woman  suffrage  will  introduce 
another  cause  of  discord  in  the  home.  Husband  and 
wife  may  disagree  in  politics.  The  woman  who  mixes 
in  political  affairs  will  neglect  her  home  duties.  To 
which  it  may  safely  be  said,  first,  that  there  are  others 
to  be  considered  than  married  women.  Single  women 
are  a  legion,  and  then  there  are  widows  to  be  taken 
into  account.  Surely  their  claims  have  as  much  right 
to  be  considered  as  married  women.  But  leaving  this 
3Ut  of  sight,  suppose  you  do  prevent  a  woman  from 


25 


voting,  you  cannot  prevent  her  from  thinking.  So, 
fundamentally,  if  disagreement  may  be  cause  of  dis- 
cord, it  is  not  removed  by  the  denial  of  the  vote.  Hus- 
bands and  wives  are  now  divided  on  more  important 
questions  than  political  ones,  but  in  the  majority  of 
cases  they  manage  to  get  along. 

We  all  know  of  families  divided  by  deeper  and  more 
fundamental  differences  in  religious  matters,  yet  they 
manage  to  live  in  harmony.  Is  it  not  absurd  then  to 
think  that  political  divergence  must  inevitably  produce 
shipwreck  ? 

To  say  that  the  exercise  of  the  right  to  vote  will 
mean  that  a  woman  must  neglect  her  home  duties  is  to 
utter  a  smug  commonplace  that  shows  how  little  given 
to  reflection  we  are. 

It  is  true,  and  observing  foreigners  have  often  told 
us  so,  that  our  American  women  do  not  seem  to  take 
any  intelligent  interest  in  political  affairs.  That  is  no 
longer  true  of  a  considerable  body  of  our  women.  But 
it  has  not  been  noted  that  in  European  countries,  where 
educated  women  have  not  only  a  keen  interest  in  their 
husbands'  business  affairs,  but  also  in  the  great  politi- 
cal concerns  of  their  country,  their  domestic  duties 
suffer  from  their  intellectual  activity. 

It  is  a  truism  in  those  countries  that  where  women 
are  interested  intelligently  in  the  serious  business  of 
life,  their  own  peculiar  duties  are  better  performed  and 
managed.  It  is  not  the  idle,  flirting,  pleasure-loving, 
brainless,  seven-toilettes  a  day  dolls  of  our  ballrooms 
or  card  parties  that  make  the  best  housekeepers,  wives, 
or  mothers.  And,  practically  speaking,  how  much 
time  does  the  average  male  voter  bestow  upon  the  dis- 
charge of  his  political  duty  in  this  country? 

Again,  I  say,  restrict  the  suffrage  by  some  intelligible 
standard  of  qualification,  but  as  long  as  the  enlight- 
ened farmers  of  Clinton  County,  New  York,  the  Abat- 
ing voters  of  New  York  City,  the  Whited  Sepulchers 

26 


of  Adams  County,  Ohio,  are  so  much  in  evidence,  do  not 
be  guilty  of  the  imbecility  of  denying  the  vote  to  women 
because  it  would  interfere  with  their  home  duties. 

Do  not  seek  refuge  either  in  the  hypocritical  asser- 
tion that  the  casting  of  a  ballot  once  a  year  in  a  ballot- 
box  in  a  polling  place,  protected  by  every  known  de- 
vice, will  degrade  women  or  be  an  indecent  act.  Be- 
fore you  descend  to  utter  that,  stop  the  crowding  in 
our  New  York  subway,  elevated  and  surface  cars, 
where  every  vestige  of  delicacy  disappears  in  your 
treatment  of  women,  where  the  standard  of  decency  is 
daily  degraded,  where  all  the  fine  restraints  Christian 
civilization  has  thrown  around  woman  for  the  pro- 
tection of  her  modesty  are  disregarded  and  she  conse- 
quently vulgarized. 

Stop  your  promiscuous  pleasure  gatherings.  Men, 
stop  taking  your  wives  to  the  theatre  where  they  be- 
hold representations  that  make  them  glad  that  no  one 
but  their  husbands  are  with  them;  stop  your  young 
girls  from  going  to  performances  and  talking  about 
them,  even  while  admitting  they  could  not  endure  the 
thought  of  witnessing  them  in  the  company  of  any  of 
their  men  folks,  relatives  or  friends. 

Purify  your  social  life,  but  do  not  be  guilty  of  the 
stupidity  of  saying  that  the  exercise  of  the  right  to 
vote  would  degrade  any  virtuous  woman  in  the  world. 
As  long  as  you  send  your  daughters  out  into  the  busy 
market  place  with  all  its  dangers,  and  expect  them  to 
avoid  the  pitfalls  that  are,  alas,  too  common,  please 
do  not  commit  intellectual  suicide  by  declaring  that 
they  cantlot  vote  because  their  modesty  or  reserve 
might  suffer. 

And  to  bring  the  matter  a  little  closer,  as  long  as  at 
church  bazaars,  fairs,  collections,  card  parties,  recep- 
tions et  hoc  genus  omne,  you  can  engage  the  services 
of  Catholic  women,  young  and  old,  to  meet  friend  and 
stranger  alike,  without  any  thought  of  danger,  please 


27 


do  not  conjure  up  imaginary  dangers  as  lurking  in  a 
polling  booth,  protected  by  the  laws  of  the  land  and  the 
intelligent  manhood  that  is  at  last  awakening  to  its 
duty  in  the  politics  of  their  country. 

Delivered  before  the  Catholic  Library  Association  at 
Delmonico's,  January  15,  1913,  and  reported  in  the 
Catholic  News,  New  York  City,  February  1,  191 3. 


WHAT  WILL  YOU  DO  WITH  IT  ?  * 

BY 

Rev.  J.  Elliot  Ross,  Ph.D.,  C.S.P. 
Chicago,  111. 
Author  of  "Consumers  and  Wage-Earners" 

You  women  of  Illinois  have  the  vote — what  are  you 
going  to  do  with  it? 

To  the  women  who  have  not  thought  of  voting,  or 
who  have  halfway  decided  not  to  vote,  I  wish  to  say : 

Have  you  ever  walked  down  State  Street  in  the 
eight  or  nine  hundred  block?  If  you  have,  you  must 
have  observed  the  horrible  looking  specimens  of  hu- 
manity spilt  along  the  street — men  with  viciousness 
and  debauchery  written  all  over  their  faces. 

Each  one  of  those  men  has  a  vote  and  he  is  going 
to  use  it.  He  is  not  going  to  stay  away  from  the  polls 
through  indifference  or  laziness  or  any  sense  of  home 
duties.  He  and  thousands  of  others  of  his  kind  will 
vote  just  as  some  dishonest,  grafting  politician  dictates, 
to  help  on  the  vice  and  corruption  here  in  Chicago. 

Now,  you  have  the  power  to  offset  one  such  corrupt, 
dishonest,  vicious  vote.  Aren't  you  going  to  use  it? 
Aren't  you,  the  Catholic  women  of  Chicago,  going  to 

*An  appeal  made  shortly  before  the  Spring  Election  of 
1914,  urging  the  Catholic  women  of  Illinois  to  exercise  their 
newly  acquired  civic  rights. 

28 


break  the  forces  of  the  power  of  evil?  Forty-five  per 
cent,  of  the  people  of  Chicago  are  Catholics — one- 
fourth  of  the  voters  of  Chicago  are  Catholic  women. 
Have  we  not  a  right  to  expect  that  you  should  rise  up 
as  a  unit  to  smite  the  army  of  darkness  that  has  too 
long  held  us  in  thrall  ? 

Each  one  of  you,  it  seems  to  me,  has  an  obligation 
to  vote.  It  is  an  obligation  that  you  cannot  shirk  with- 
out offending  God.  Any  little  whim,  such  as  a  dis- 
taste at  appearing  at  the  polls,  will  not  be  sufficient 
excuse.  For  there  is  a  duty  placed  upon  you  by  the 
supreme  law  of  charity  to  kill  that  one  vote  for  evil 
that  it  is  in  your  power  to  kill. 

You  must,  then,  vote.  And  you  must  vote  hon- 
estly. Never  let  there  be  ground  for  saying  of  you, 
as  there  has  been  for  saying  of  Catholic  men,  that  they 
have  used  the  franchise  dishonestly.  The  Catholic 
women  of  Chicago  must  be  above  directly  or  indirectly 
corrupting  public  officials — if  they  should  become 
officials  themselves,  they  must  be  irreproachable.  I 
would  not  so  much  as  suggest  that  you  might  consider 
the  taking  of  outright  bribes,  the  payment  of  so  much 
cash  for  such  a  service.  But  you  must  keep  your  eyes 
open  and  your  hearts  pure  to  detect  every  indirect 
form,  such  as  promise  of  re-election,  social  prestige 
and  every  personal  advantage. 

Catholic  women  must  not  use  their  power  as  citizens 
or  as  officials  merely  for  their  private  profit.  Do  not 
vote  for  an  alderman  simply  because  he  will  have  a 
street  opened  for  your  benefit  when  dozens  of  other 
streets  ought  to  come  first.  Our  government  should 
not  degenerate  into  a  wild  scramble  for  personal  privi- 
leges regardless  of  moral  law  and  God's  justice.  If 
there  be  good  reason  to  call  our  governments  by  the 
expressive  name  of  troughs,  we  have  no  right  to  be- 
come pigs  therein  in  our  eagerness  to  get  our  share 
of  the  graft.    To  steal  from  the  people  is  as  great  a 


29 


sin  or  greater  than  to  steal  from  an  individual,  no 
matter  how  the  operation  is  conducted,  no  matter  what 
name  it  bears  in  public  opinion. 

And  the  Catholic  women  of  Chicago  must  not  only- 
do  no  political  wrong  with  their  votes,  they  must  do 
much  political  good.  It  ought  to  be  a  foregone  con- 
clusion that  Catholic  names  should  be  foremost  in 
every  movement  for  social  betterment.  Instead  of 
strengthening  the  hopeless  inertia  that  all  seekers  after 
improvement  have  to  struggle  so  hard  to  overcome, 
they  should  be  prominent  in  arousing  the  social  con- 
science to  action.  You  who  pray  so  many  times  a  day, 
"Thy  kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it 
is  in  Heaven,"  might  reasonably,  one  might  think,  be 
counted  upon  to  do  something  to  make  God's  will  more 
effective  here  and  now. 

You  cannot  give  as  an  excuse  for  standing  here  all 
the  day  idle  that  no  man  has  hired  you.  You  belong 
to  the  chosen  people,  and  Christ  has  called  you  from 
our  baptism  to  be  a  light  unto  the  nations  that  know 
him  not.  It  is  useless  for  you  to  say,  "I  do  no  harm, 
I  hurt  no  one,"  God  did  not  put  you  here  merely  to  do 
no  harm.  The  commandments  of  the  old  law  were  all 
negative.  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness,  thou 
shalt  not  steal,  and  so  on.  But  the  commandments  of 
Christ  are  positive.  The  rich  young  man,  who  from 
his  youth  up  had  kept  these  negative  commandments 
of  the  old  law,  had  not  done  enough.  He  was  told  to 
sell  all  he  had.  Christ  does  not  say,  "Do  no  harm," 
but  "Love  God  with  your  whole  heart,  and  your 
neighbor  as  yourself ;  render  to  Csesar  the  things  that 
are  Caesar's ;  do  unto  others  as  you  would  have  them 
do  unto  you." 

Therefore,  in  our  political  life,  a  mere  negative  good- 
ness will  not  do.  If  we  are  good  trees,  we  must  pro- 
duce good  fruit.  It  is  not  sufficient  that  we  should 
simply  not  produce  bad  fruit,  if  indeed,  such  a  thing 


30 


is  possible.  For  Christ  said,  He  that  is  not  with  Me 
is  against  Me,  he  that  gathereth  not,  scattereth,  and 
he  who  is  not  working  to  produce  good  is  at  least  per- 
mitting evil.  This  is  especially  true  under  our  form 
of  government.  The  forces  of  evil  are  ever  active, 
and  if  a  good  woman  merely  refrains  from  voting  be- 
cause it  is  raining  or  it  is  too  much  trouble  or  for  some 
other  equally  weak  reason,  she  is  really  placing  this 
vote  in  the  hands  of  corrupt  politicians.  It  was  in  her 
power  to  offset  the  vote  of  the  vicious  men  who  are 
always  under  the  thumb  of  ward-heelers,  and  she  did 
not  do  it.  She  is  not  merely  not  doing  good — she  is 
doing  evil.  For,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  she  is 
casting  a  vote  for  the  machine,  she  is  strengthening 
the  grip  of  corruption  upon  our  government. 

We  have  a  right  to  expect  that  the  Catholic  women 
of  Chicago  will  do  all  in  their  power,  will  exert  them- 
selves to  the  utmost,  to  bring  about  the  social  good. 
We  are  members  one  of  another.  We  were  born  into 
society  and  cannot  escape  from  it  if  we  would.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  we  owe  all  our  comforts, 
even  our  lives,  to  society,  and  we  are  bound  to  make 
some  return.  Whether  you  be  high  officials  or  low, 
women  of  large  influence  or  simply  with  a  vote  to  cast, 
you  are  obliged  in  the  sight  of  God  to  use  your  power, 
such  as  it  is,  for  good  and  against  evil.  You  must  in 
conscience  vote  for  the  good  man  as  against  the  bad, 
the  honest  man  as  opposed  to  the  grafter. 

I  don't  believe  we  shall  be  disappointed  in  our  ex- 
pectations. I  don't  believe  that  the  chivalrous  confi- 
dence that  we  have  had  in  women  has  been  misplaced. 
And  I  pray  that  the  Catholic  women  will  be  among 
those  to  respond  most  faithfully  to  this  confidence.  I 
pray — I  know  that  the  great  mass  of  Catholic  voters 
added  to  the  electorate  by  the  last  legislature,  the 
Catholic  women  of  Chicago  and  Illinois,  will  respond 
loyally  to  the  responsibility  placed  upon  them;  that 


31 


they  will  vote  honestly  and  intelligently,  knowing  the 
issues  and  the  candidates;  that  they  will  continue  to 
be,  as  they  have  always  been,  dominated  by  the  great 
Christian  principles  of  morality;  and  that  instead  of 
being  corrupted  by  politics,  as  some  have  predicted, 
that  they  will  purify  and  ennoble  the  home.  What- 
ever we  may  have  thought  before  of  votes  for  women, 
they  have  achieved  or  had  greatness  thrust  upon  them, 
and  they  must  not  refuse  its  accompanying  duties.  Let 
womanhood  take  to  herself  those  words  of  the  King 
and  Prophet  David :  "In  thy  comeliness  and  thy  beauty 
go  forward,  proceed  prosperously,  and  reign."  Make 
them  truly  prophetic  of  the  career  of  the  women  of 
Illinois.  In  your  comeliness,  and  in  your  beauty,  go 
forward,  proceed  prosperously,  and  reign, — more  right- 
eously and  honestly  than  the  men  have. 


32 


"Life  is  too  short  for  reading  inferior  books." — Bryce. 


New  York  World:  "The  'right  to  work  for  whom  they  please 
and  how  they  please*  has  been  used  as  a  defense  for  every  iniquity 
of  industrialism,  from  phosphorous  poisoning  in  match  factories 
to  the  labor  of  tiny  children  long  hours  at  night,  from  harnessing 
women  like  beasts,  dragging  mine  cars,  to  the  denial  of  safety 
appliances  on  dangerous  machinery." 


CONSUMERS  AND 
WAGE  EARNERS 

The  Ethics  of  Buying  Cheap 
By  REV.  J.  ELLIOT  ROSS,  Ph.D. 

An  exposure  of  the  vice-compelling,  unjust  wages  of  these  troublous 
times — and  a  solution.  Should  be  read  by  every  buyer,  every  seller,  every 
consumer  and  every  wage-earner.  It  should  be  studied  carefully  by  ALL 
fathers  and  mothers. 

"The  inevitable  result  of  low  wages  is  poor  health.  Bad  housing  con- 
ditions and  insufficient  food  must  follow  upon  the  heels  of  scanty  pay, 
unless  the  wages  are  supplemented  in  some  other  way;  and  that  means 
anemia,  tuberculosis  and  general  physical  debility." 

A  book  that  Pastors  and  Teachers  may  safely  commend  to  employers 
and  to  employees.  The  Common  Cause  says:  "No  work  in  behalf  of  the 
consumer  and  the  oppressed  wage-earner  that  has  appeared  in  some  years 
deserves  more  serious  attention  than  this  book  by  Dr.  J.  Elliot  Ross." 
The  Scholarly  Month  says:  "In  'Consumers  and  Wage- Earners*  we  have 
met  for  the  first  time  this  subject  treated  formally  and  exhaustively 
according  to  the  principles  of  Christian  morality.  We  trust  that  all 
Catholic  students  will  make  a  text-book  of  this  valuable  work  and 
endeavor  to  spread  its  teaching  amongst  their  countrymen." 

The  Journal  of  Political  Economy  (Chicago  University  Press) :  "Con- 
cise, logical  and  interesting.'' 

The  Catholic  World :  "Dr.  Ross  has  answered  adequately  and  con- 
vincingly the  question  so  often  asked  to-day  about  the  responsibility  of 
the  consumer  for  the  inhumane  treatment  of  the  producer.' 

The  Ave  Maria:  "Undoubtedly  one  of  the  best  books  of  the  year  from 
every  point  of  view." 

PRICE  $1.00  NET 

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